I am really trying to learn to be more articulate when explaining my ideas. I have trouble in the classroom sometimes; my talking points become tangential or, as it often happens, I can visualize what I am saying but cannot find the right words to explain myself. So, I wanted to put myself to test and really practice the way I speak about my thoughts. I think it’s especially hard to talk about a subject (in this case, sexuality and blackness) that you are still exploring, so I tried it out and hopefully it worked out

I am still thinking about this violence that grows in the institial space of blackness and homosexuality that both School Daze and Tongues Untied create, not only in it’s content, but the way the two films are filmed and directed. I touched upon it in my vlog, the jarring nature of the cuts and overlapping sound in Tongues Untied or the language of intimidation that is inherently homophobic in School Daze. I wanted to tie my thoughts together a little bit before I finally squash this topic, but please comment with any thoughts! I’m still trying to figure it out myself.

Look forward to a part 2 sometime this week, talking about the choice for doing a vlog instead of a write-up and still trying to unload the complexity of these films.

I also encourage everyone to please comment below and start a dialogue! Maybe even responding in video format would be cool, too! I want this to be as engaged as possible. This is a continuous conversation that doesn’t stop here.

Oscar Micheaux is credited as the first African American film director. He was part of a movement in film, which was called ‘race films’, a somewhat condescending and reducing title for an ambitious and formidable school of film. Micheaux’s films stand alone as race films that actually dealt with issues of race and in … Continue reading →

We’ve all heard this phrase used in earnest before. It’s supposed to downplay or excuse something racist said by a white person by demonstrating their personal affinity for black people. It is meaningless and an extension of the racism expressed in their previous statement that they are now trying to cover up with the excuse … Continue reading →

Spike Lee has a firm place in the debate of the obligation of the black artist. Lee sits as an unwavering force in this discussion because he is a black artist making art about black people for black people at an unprecedented scale with an unprecedented audience. Get on the Bus, for several reasons, … Continue reading →

In Black Skin, White Masks, Frantz Fanon addresses the appearance of blackness in black men and what it means to validate your black, male appearance. In lieu with that the idea that seeing black males, evoked memories of violence and following, feelings of fear in white people, I believe that there would have been an effort to […]

When I first watched Get on the Bus, I laughed out loud when I saw Isaiah Washington’s character. The laughter come from a place of being confused about his identity as a black gay republican and a vague memory of watching Grey’s Anatomy when I was in middle school. I found it interesting that in […]

This essay, by Bill Benzon, is one of the most sophisticated readings of Mo’Better Blues. I found it very resourceful for my final project. In this essay, he discusses; The Cultural Psychodynamics of Racism Discipline of Jazz: From Nature to Culture Destructiveness and Creativity: The Albatross of Romanticism The Blues in the Night Jazz as […]

TW: Sexual Assault The two aspects of School Daze that really rubbed me the wrong way were its handling of queer issues and its handling of sexual assault. In School Daze, Lee sought to portray HBCU life in all of its complexities. However, in doing so, I feel he used the issue of sexual violence and gay identity […]

As I mentioned in my last blog, I really wanted to do a film analysis of When the Levees Broke, but since I wasn’t sure how to go about it, I looked up some guidelines from a few websites. This film analysis website had the easiest step-by-step guideline, so I’ll be using it for my blog, but I’ll […]

I found Spike Lee’s 1996 film Get on the Bus to be an interesting, although not satisfying, look at Black American masculinity in its multitude of forms in the mid-1990s. One aspect of the movie that stuck out most for me was the depiction of queer (in this case, gay or MSM) identity. I was particularly […]